Microelectronic devices such as IC (integrated circuit) packages can include some form of a voltage regulator for one or more semiconductor die (herein, “die”), within the package. In some configurations, such voltage regulators include one or more air core inductors (each, an “ACI”). Conventional ACIs can offer less than optimal performance, and in some cases can require the presence of additional components in the package, such as magnetic inductor arrays and/or capacitors to compensate for the performance limitations. In other cases, this less than optimal performance can require that the ACI be constructed with coils of larger dimensions and/or an increased number of turns (realized through an increased number of coil layers, in many constructions) than would otherwise be required, in order to achieve a desired quality (Q) factor of the inductor. Such additional components, or increased dimensions and/or turns of the inductor coils, can increase the required dimensions of the microelectronic device package. Such required dimensions can be increased in the lateral dimensions (in the X-Y directions, as may be defined by the major dimensions of the substrate) and/or in the vertical (Z) direction (extending generally perpendicularly to the substrate).
Additionally, in some conventional systems, in order for the device package to be used in some applications, other structures may need to be modified to accept the microelectronic device package. For example, in some conventional microelectronic device package configurations, one or more of the described additional components of the voltage regulator may be coupled to the ball grid array (BGA) side of the substrate, and may have a Z dimension greater than that of the BGA. Thus, such package configurations require a recess within a motherboard or other connecting structure. Such requirements undesirably increase the cost of manufacture of the motherboard (or other structure).